Big Data and Data Science are overused catch phrases that can mean anything anyone wants them to mean. But the hype doesn’t change the facts. We are being overwhelmed with data, and I can assure you that if you don’t know what to do with it, your competition will.

Millennials empirically know that bar crawling is for recreation – not for archaic, time-wasting, low-percentage mating rituals. If you want to meet someone, there are any number of big dating sites and apps available.

In a perfect world, you just hire a bunch of data scientists, have them deploy clever algorithms, and the machine will output a clear path to higher sales, better ROI and world peace. Sadly, that’s not how it works.

Data science is all the rage. Almost every CMO I know wants a data scientist for their very own – they are the status symbol du jour for senior executives everywhere. But… building the right data science team for your organization is not as easy as picking the right data scientist.

While the Boy Scout Motto is, "Be Prepared" – and I was very serious about Scouting back in the day – I am always amused when I happen by NatGeo's "Doomsday Preppers." But I can say with certainty that they are missing the biggest, most obvious threat: Data Doomsday!

Earlier this week, the digerati assembled at the Gramercy Park Hotel to hear a very proud James Dolan, CEO of Cablevision Systems Corporation and Executive Chairman of The Madison Square Garden Company, gleefully announced the launch of Cablevision's Freewheel WiFi Phone Service.

All a motivated cyber-criminal, with designs on being Emperor of the Internet, has to do is target the 1 percenters. Take out the uber-wealthy, or just the super-wealthy, and nothing else will matter. This is going to be a great business for someone.

My friends who like to discuss politics and my colleagues who like to write about politics have made it clear to me that President Obama's State of the Union Address was precisely what they expected. If you can put your political ideology aside for a few minutes, we can think through the following issues together as American citizens.

According to a White House fact sheet, President Obama has announced "steps he will discuss in the State of the Union to help more Americans, in more communities around the country, get access to fast and affordable broadband."

I loved CES this year. (The 2015 International CES®). Everything about it was interesting, awesome and inspiring, except... the traffic, the shuttle queues and the cab lines. Here's a quick, very short list of things that got my undivided attention this year.

Technological advancements always empower people to behave differently – what makes today different is that the rate of technological advancement is accelerating beyond our capacity, perhaps even our ability, to react – and this... is new.

What can we learn from the data we already have? Can traditional demography be adapted to describe the world as we observe it? Are there tools that could help us better understand consumer behavior? What does it mean to sell an actual audience as opposed to selling a proxy for it?

According to a June 2014 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the likely annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime could reach $575 Billion. It's a big number. Here are a five ways hackers will try to get you to contribute to it while you enthusiastically search for the best deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.